spin

All of which is irrelevant to Tacitus of course.

For those interested in the issue and what Tacitus knew please check out an earlier response from well over a year ago to Roger Pearse here.


spin

Malachi151

True, I "misspoke" there. Indeed his use of the term Christus as a given name indicates that his knowledge of the subject is foggy and that he's basically passing on hearsay, which both supports the authenticity of the passage and supports the notion that he is doing just that, passing on popular hearsay.

The whole procurator issue is a non-issue. Trying to bring it up and harp on it just makes you look stupid IMO.

Taken at face value the Tacitus passage is not evidence for the existence of Jesus. Why do you feel the need to make further bogus arguments that only undermine your credibility?

Its like someone asks you for an alibi for where you were last night, and you were at home with your family and there is a record of you being home because a neighbor came over and saw you, but then to try and really establish an alibi you make up a lie about aliens having abducted you during that time.

Its stupid.

The Tacitus passage doesn't prove anything as it stands. There is no reason to try and further dissect it.

judge

Are you denying that by the time Tacitus wrote this (apparently 110CE) what had previously been known as prefects were now known as procurators?

This seems to be what , IIUC Roger is saying. If this is the case then it doesn't seem impossible that Tacitus would have referred to him in the then correct way.

The point you are trying to make just doesn't seem that strong.

You both have your points. Where do peer reviewed scholars sit on this one?
Do they favor you or Roger?

sugarhitman

I havnt read Tacitus other writings such as his (if the critics are correct) account of a Emperor healing a blind man with his spit, or the phoenix in Egypt, and chariots in the sky. But he was alive during the young christian movement, and he makes it very clear that it is something he does not see as positive. In fact he sees it as "evil." He also says that it was "checked for the moment" which shows that this checking was present.


Question, was his attitude positive towards the healing Emperor, the phoenix and chariot stories? If he is bias towards these stories then it would be no surprise if he writes about them as being true. But why would he do that to promote the Christian religion, something he hates? It seems as though the death of Christ and the checking of the christian movement was something he approved of. So why confirm something as fact that you hate?

the_cave

Tertullian is writing 90 years after Tacitus supposedly did; that's a lot of time for legends to develop. Still, I see little reason to doubt that Nero was persecuting somebody. But was it as the Tacitus passage describes (i.e. linked to the fire, public spectacles, etc.)?

As for Acts, at this point I would say it's almost certainly a 2nd-century document (possibly with 1st century sources)--in fact, it probably post-dates Pliny. So I find it untrustworthy to some degree.

I am not harping on it in any way; please refer to the thread which spin links to in his message above. It is a real issue.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I am not arguing about whether it's evidence for the existence of Jesus (whatever that might mean). I am simply wondering who wrote it and when.

I have no idea where this non-sequitur came from or what relevance it could possibly have to anything.

Again, where did you get the idea I'm trying to prove anything with it? I just want to answer a simple question: who wrote it, and when?

No Robots

Unlike your own repetition of your "Ebion" analogy?

So why don't you edit it?

Here is H. Bk. 5.9:

IX. Cneius Pompeius was the first of our countrymen to subdue the Jews. Availing himself of the right of conquest, he entered the temple. Thus it became commonly known that the place stood empty with no similitude of gods within, and that the shrine had nothing to reveal. The walls of Jerusalem were destroyed, the temple was left standing. After these provinces had fallen, in the course of our civil wars, into the hands of Marcus Antonius, Pacorus, king of the Parthians, seized Judæa. He was slain by Publius Ventidius, and the Parthians were driven back over the Euphrates. Caius Sosius reduced the Jews to subjection. The royal power, which had been bestowed by Antony on Herod, was augmented by the victorious Augustus. On Herod's death, one Simon, without waiting for the approbation of the Emperor, usurped the title of king. He was punished by Quintilius Varus then governor of Syria, and the nation, with its liberties curtailed, was divided into three provinces under the sons of Herod. Under Tiberius all was quiet. But when the Jews were ordered by Caligula to set up his statue in the temple, they preferred the alternative of war. The death of the Emperor put an end to the disturbance. The kings were either dead, or reduced to insignificance, when Claudius entrusted the province of Judæa to the Roman Knights or to his own freedmen, one of whom, Antonius Felix, indulging in every kind of barbarity and lust, exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave. He had married Drusilla, the granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and so was the grandson-in-law, as Claudius was the grandson, of Antony.

Nothing in there about titles.

Ben C Smith

If you think that Tacitus making this mistake is a reason to question authenticity, I invite you to review the exchange spin and I had on this topic.

Ben.

Roger Pearse

You understand me correctly.

I was thinking of an elderly paper by A.N.Sherwin-White, Procurator Augusti, Papers of the British School at Rome N.S. 2 (1939) pp.11-26, p.12 n.7. This is mainly about just what a procurator was, and when the title started to be assigned to what we would call governors (i.e. under Claudius). The only mention of our passage is a note:

7. The original title of the governor of Judaea remains uncertain: cf. Hirschfeld, op.cit. 384 f. The sources are inconsistent or non-technical. Tac. Ann. 15,44 (procurator) is probably proleptic. The balance of probability inclines towards praefectus, though less on the analogy of Egypt, which Hirschfeld puts forward, than on that of Sardinia and the Maritime Alps. Judaea was very small and unruly. Herod, the predecessor of the Roman governors, might be regarded as holding a similar position to Cottius, especially if he allowed the Romans to take a census in his kingdom, part of which was provincialised after his death.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spin

The question is badly formed. What had been known as prefects were still referred to as prefects, despite the fact that in some cases the gubernatorial roles that some carried out were now performed in an augmented way by procurators.

Roger Pearse is merely trying to obfuscate the reality. Take his red herring about the prefect of Egypt. Tacitus gets the title right, so RP's mention has no value other than to confuse the issue.

What that Tacitus knew what he was talking about when he used titles correctly? The man had held many of them and wrote about Roman affairs with some precision.

I've looked for articles which actually deal with the issue without success.


spin

Roger Pearse

That's unfortunately much too easy a way to dismiss evidence. 90 years is nothing in ancient history. Those who wish to assert that testimony can be disregarded must produce evidence, not speculation, surely?

While we may not have most of the books that Tertullian used, we need hardly suppose that he didn't have the Roman law books that specified why Christianity was a crime, and how it should be published. Ulpian's De officiis proconsularis which included such a section was written when Tertullian was a young man.

All the best,

Roger Pearse